Chapter 56
There’s no clear moment when you return to consciousness. It’s not like you open your eyes and there everything is, the world, and you, in it. You’re unclear on whether your eyes are, in fact, open, aware of sunlight only as a white-red burning. Pain fades in and out, as much a part of life’s background noise as the hazy heat. The air you take in would be parching if it weren’t humid with the taste of blood. Only a little air at a time. Too deep a breath and one side of you just crumples in broken shards of agony.
The feeling goes in and out, in and out. You can feel yourself healing, too, the itching of new skin and bone spun slowly out of your energy reserves. There’s nothing to do but lie here and let that happen. It hurts to move anyway.
Mewtwo’s not here. It takes some time and more than a little effort to muster an idea of where “here” is, but eventually you decide you’re still on the roof of the Cipher factory. You recognize the sound of the wind rattling the metal panels, carrying sand that hisses past you in stinging gusts. That’s fine, you suppose. It’s not unexpected. You think that, when you feel at all inclined to move again, the first thing you’ll do is get out of the sun.
It’s peaceful, in a way, lying and resting and waiting for the world to come back into focus. It can take as long as it likes.
It’s peaceful until you hear a sound altogether different from the windblown sand. It’s softer, more regular. The faint swish of fur against metal. The click of claws.
It can only be Absol. You breathe too deep and then pay for it with a sheet of fiery pain. Absol’s coming towards you, and there’s nothing at all you can do about it.
The delicate footsteps stop short in front of you, and your vision goes dark as something comes between you and the sun. You wish more than anything you could reach up and check your eyes, unstick them if that’s what the problem is, but raising your arm is so far beyond you that you might as well wish you could time travel.
What’s Absol doing? Standing there, silently. After a few seconds you tense, painfully, as something brushes against the side of your face. Absol inspecting you up close. You wish again for movement, the power to shove her away, but still you can’t lift a finger, much less a hand.
Absol travels down the length of you, here and there nudging with her soft, hot nose. She can’t be more than brushing the surface of your skin, but her touch is enough to wake searing pain, so you gasp and then subside in even more agony than before, sides torn open by your involuntary breath.
After an eternity of this Absol must be satisfied, for she stops moving around. Stops prodding. You’d think she’d left if it weren’t for the shadow that lingers over you.
It could be a long time before Absol speaks. You don’t know how tightly you’re holding the seconds right now. But at some point she says, “I understand.”
You think you must be fully awake, and now that you are, you’re thirsty. Horribly thirsty, tongue swollen and crusty in your mouth, throat raw so that every breath is painful, tasting nothing but iron and dust. Even if you had anything to say to Absol, you wouldn’t be able to get it out.
“Do you think I never did the same?” Absol asks. You work your thick tongue in the vain hope of raising a bit of saliva, but that’s all. Absol can be as cryptic as she likes. You aren’t answering her. “I’ve resisted Fate. Of course I have.”
And that… that’s interesting, even over everything else. A sigh escapes you, what could have been an exclamation. You can’t imagine Absol ever going against her precious Fate. What else does she even care about?
“Do not mistake my diligence for joy,” Absol says. “I get no pleasure from serving as Fate’s executor. It is not my own plan that I follow. I did not get to choose my Fate any more than you have. I was not blessed with happy visions.”
Yes, yes, she’s not responsible for anything, she’s only doing what’s required of her. The usual excuses. She’s not the one counting broken bones after daring to defy Mewtwo. Defy Fate. So what if Absol knows what she’s seeing is bad? She’s still trying to make it happen, whatever her excuse is.
You’re sure your lip curls, a sneer trying to break out on your shattered face. Absol must see. “It is not kind,” she says. “But the alternative is worse. I’m sure that is difficult for you to believe.”
Difficult. Nothing, there’s nothing worse than this.
Except of course you have to admit, even in your own head, that that isn’t true. Mewtwo could go even crazier than he already is and just start killing everyone indiscriminately. Kanto could drop a bomb on Orre again. The Transformozords could be defeated and the galaxy overrun by space pirates. But those are all such big things, such improbable things. It’s hard to imagine that they could ever be true.
“I was young once, the same as you are now. I cared not for my visions. And I had more reason than you, perhaps, to fear them.” You hear Absol shifting, the faint scrape of claws. She’s settling in. Telling you this whether you want to hear it or not. Why?
“I was a common absol, once. We all begin the same. Unremarkable and blind. It is not until well into our first year that we begin to understand Fate–the second year, for some. And even then not much can be said of a yearling’s visions. They are hazy and confused, and though we treasure each, comb them over for even the faintest hint of meaning, truly they say little at all. It was not until well into my third year that I began to realize that something was wrong. That I was different.”
Different? You thought all absol were like Absol. United in Fate, all dour and distant and mysterious.
“Most absol see the Fate of the familiar world around them. They see the future of kin and clan, the weather and the seasons and what disasters might yet come. Some dream a bit further, know the Fate of the rockruff denning behind the waterfall or the starly in the pines. But our visions are focused close to home. How could they be otherwise? What good would it do to know the Fate of humans, of distant absol across the sea? Our gift of Fate is meant to serve us, not to feed us worries about far-off people and their worlds.
“It took me far longer than my peers to begin to understand my visions. Where were the mountains and the forest and the falls? I knew nothing of oceans, whether of water or of sand. I saw no other absol, not a single one, sibling or parent or close and cherished friend. I began to realize that what I saw was worlds away. I still could not interpret most of my visions; I had no knowledge of ‘Kanto,’ nor of your mother. But I knew I saw different things than other absol. I began to be afraid.
“I knew what it meant to see other worlds. An absol is called to bring their Fate about. If my Fate lay beyond the clan, then I would have to leave. I would need to find the people and places I had seen, and I would need to carry out my duty far from home. I was young. I had found love within my clan. I had no desire to seek the world beyond the mountains, which held everything I had ever cared for.
“I told no one. I invented prophecies, the most minor and innocuous that I could devise. When it might rain, how many young the local deerling would produce. My visions were the most bland of any in my generation. I was an unremarkable absol. And yet unbeknownst to all, even to my mate, I heard whispers of far-off places. My true visions were alive with fire and dust. Disaster was coming. But not to me. Not to my clan. That was what I believed. And so I kept silent.”
Absol pauses for a long time, then. There’s no sound but the desert wind and the wheeze of your breathing. You can feel your healing working, so much faster than a human’s but still so awfully slow. Tentative movements no longer leave you paralyzed with pain, but you can’t breathe too deeply yet. And you’re only getting more thirsty. You want to focus on what Absol’s telling you. You know it’s important. She never tells you anything about herself. But there’s no relief for your parched throat, and the gusting wind steals more and more moisture away.
“I have no excuse,” Absol says at last. “You can imagine we absol are taught much of Fate. I knew what could happen. What would happen. By failing to act on my visions, I defied Fate. The longer I rejected them, the more grave my betrayal became.
“Others’ prophecies became darker. The clan prepared for difficult times, for some unknown disaster stalking us all. Still I remained silent. How could I admit to being the reason for the doom foretold? I couldn’t believe my small transgression could truly have great consequences. I’d been told many stories of absol who’d thought the same, to their bitter tragedy. But stories are stories. My life was real. I was real. I am no different from any other person. I truly did not believe that such great misfortune could befall me.
“And it didn’t. After all, to fulfill my Fate, I would need to remain alive. Strong. Capable of traveling to distant lands. Disaster befell me, yes, but only through the suffering of others.”
Another long pause. You consider prompting her, reminding her that you’re here and listening and wondering what happened. What disaster is she talking about?
You try rolling onto your side, more stiff now than actually in pain. And thirsty. So thirsty. Blearily you think of conjuring water and trying to lick it off the hot metal in front of you, but to use that much energy when you can barely move seems impossible.
Maybe you could ask Absol to get you water. But your tongue feels four times its normal size, glued to the roof of your mouth by some disgusting paste of blood and mucus. You don’t know if you can make a sound besides your wheezy rasp.
Absol may take your pathetic twitching as a prompt to continue. “That is all I wish to say on that matter,” she says with flat finality. “After everything… occurred, I could remain silent no longer. I knew others’ visions spoke of more to come. If I continued to resist, the worst possible future could well come true.
“When I revealed what I saw, there could be only one way forward. I would have to leave, but first I would have to prepare. Now my true visions were offered up for analysis. The elders conferred; they decided I was blessed, blessed beyond measure with visions powerful enough to sway the world far beyond our forest. More blessed yet when they agreed that the pokémon whose Fate I foretold was the most revered Mew.”
An involuntary gurgle escapes your throat and leaves you choking, wishing you could have suppressed it.
“Yes, we knew of Mew,” Absol says blandly. “We did not tell so many stories of her; perhaps Absol living closer to her home would have more to say. But what pokémon does not know of Mew? The elders found her in my visions and, finally, determined a location as well: what humans call ‘Cinnabar Island.’ My true path laid bare at last.
“I was given what assistance my clan could spare. We absol can harness the power of disaster, but it’s a skill rarely taught. A skill I would need to protect myself when I was alone in foreign lands. A great honor, and a difficult one to master, one usually reserved for the elders themselves. They did their best to teach me. They had to.”
Absol’s special attacks? Is that what she’s talking about? They are pretty impressive. You suppose it would make sense that she’d have special moves if she’s a special absol. The thought’s fleeting, annoying, almost, like a fly hovering above the immense carcass of your thirst. You try again to work your tongue in your mouth, but it’s solidly glued in place.
Your arm you can move, though, centimeter by slow centimeter. Hesitant fingers inspect your eyes. They’re crusted over with blood and you don’t even want to speculate about what else, and tears flood them when you claw the gunk away. The world comes through to you murkily, but you are seeing. They healed okay, then.
Now Absol makes a fuzzy white patch amidst dull, scuffed steel. She keeps going, ignoring your patient movements. “All the same, it was my selfishness that brought disaster upon my clan. I’d thought that by denying Fate I could live a comfortable life. An unremarkable one. And I was not the one who paid most dear for that foolish self-deception. The clan was obligated to aid me, to burden me with its greatest secrets, arm me with its best weapons. But it did not do so joyfully. Many resented me for what I’d done, the grief I’d caused them. Who could blame them? I cannot deny that I was self-centered.”
Absol strokes at the metal beneath her like she’s reassuring it somehow. “Fate could have scoured every absol from the mountains, written its lesson in blood and fire. Instead Fate chose something subtler, perhaps. Perhaps even more cruel. It did not need to destroy my clan to force me to leave. It needed only give them cause to despise me. Then I would be cast out even if I chose to remain, orphaned though my family yet lived, my shame not buried with those who died for my selfishness, but instead left to live on in cautionary tales. It is a far more complete erasure than a simple death, one that will live on for generations. An immortal failure.” She says it as neutrally as ever.
“You might expect me to have learned my lesson by then. I had been shown the will of Fate and given another chance to return to the true path. The punishment I had been given was, by all accounts, a mild one. And perhaps it was this mercy that led me to ruin, for I yet resisted the path laid out before me. I could not return home, nor to any absol clan: a wandering absol is suspicious enough, but any group of my kind would soon guess at my true nature. But I was not yet willing to resign myself to a lonely life.
“There are absol in this world who live with humans. Some are compelled to seek then out by their visions. Some have never known a clan. It is not the same, meeting absol in ones and twos, far away from home, but it is better than meeting none at all. I moved from place to place, human to human, telling myself that if I never lingered too long, disaster would not catch up with me.
“It was foolish, of course. Mysterious illness, severe weather, broken hearts and all such minor troubles: I told myself they had nothing to do with me. I was not happy, wandering from one master to another, but better that than to strike out for the source of the visions with which I had been cursed. I asked myself, would it not be better if such Fate never came about? Would it not be better for the world to suffer minor disasters if it turned aside from calamity?
“Nothing but arrogance. Selfishness. To presume that I knew the world better than Fate–it is an understandable failing, perhaps, but a dire one. And again would I be punished, when Fate’s warnings proved insufficient. When war broke out around me, when cities burned and the wilds, too, at last I was humbled. I would turn aside no longer. Only then did I seek my Fate, your mother and your island.”
You try to speak, mouth working soundlessly and the air catching in your parched throat. Something tickles deep down at the back of it, and even your desperate horror doesn’t let you suppress the great cough that rips out of you, waking pain all up and down your torso. You hack spasmodically until you’ve dislodged something red and black that dribbles out onto the roof and leaves your mouth tasting once more of blood. Weak, dry coughs follow, no respite for your protesting ribs.
“I understand,” Absol says, like you’ve made some eloquent argument. “It’s a hard lesson to learn, when one’s Fate is clouded by misery and hardship, that the Fated path is still the best one. Learn from my example: turning away will only make it worse. I can offer you this comfort, that you are Fated to find your mother. If you trust in Fate, I can promise you at least that you will survive to see her again. There can be no such guarantee if you would break it.”
“Absol,” you gasp. It’s no more than a breath, your mouth shaping the word without sound. “Absol, can you make it rain?”
Her red eyes bore into you, but you don’t care. You can’t possibly give Absol the answer she wants until you have water. And you’re too weak to conjure it for yourself.
Whether Absol concedes to mercy or simply goes through the same calculus you do, she does rise to her feet after long, silent seconds. Her rain dance starts off slow, her paws sliding sideways one at a time, but moves faster and faster as Absol circles you. Soon she’s leaping and spinning as though stirring the clouds with the sweep of her blue-glowing horn. And there are clouds, now, clouds billowing into towers from a blue and empty sky. Their gentle shade is already a relief to your cracked and reddened skin, and when the first few droplets fall it’s like a miracle. All you can think of is catching the rain before it vanishes again, rolling onto your back despite your injuries, mouth open wide.
Absol sweeps through a last few steps, paws squelching in the sudden damp. As puddles form you give up on trying to catch raindrops and turn back onto your stomach, lapping greedily at the film of water gathering on the metal. Absol watches without comment, her long, thick fur growing damp and draggled.
You feel like you could drink and drink forever, but as the storm drizzles on you slowly begin to come back to yourself. You push yourself to a sitting position, feeling almost optimistic that you might try standing again someday. It will be whole hours, you know, before you’re completely back to normal. Or at least until your body is. If you ever get away from Mewtwo, you don’t know how long you’ll take to fully heal, if you even still can.
For a little while you watch Absol watching you. Waiting for you to make the next move, to speak first. The same as always. After everything, the very best she can promise you is that you won’t actually die.
“I’ll see my pokémon again, won’t I?” you ask at last. “You saw them being there when we find Mew.”
“Yes. If you do what is required of you.”
“But you aren’t going to go after them now?” you ask, warningly. Like there’s anything you could do about it if that’s what she decided.
“I do not know where they are.”
Oh. You suppose that makes sense. It means they must not do anything that could really stop Mewtwo. But they’ll try, won’t they? Once Titan lets Rats out and explains what happened, the first thing she’ll do is figure out some way to rescue you. It won’t work. But you know Rats would be so hopeful. So determined.
You swallow back a lump in your throat that’s more than just damaged tissue. You can’t stand to look at Absol anymore, instead turning your eyes to the scuffed metal beside your feet.
“Do you understand now?” Absol asks. “You recognize the danger of turning aside from Fate?”
“Yes,” you say dully. There’s nothing you can do now. You don’t have a chance of standing up to Mewtwo on your own.
“When the time comes, will you give up your mother’s power? Will you return it to her, that she might be restored?” Absol asks.
You look up again in surprise and find Absol’s gaze boring into you, as intense as you’ve ever seen it. “Yes,” you say. “I’m going to save Mew. You know I am. Don’t you? I don’t want to be around Mewtwo, but of course I want to save her.”
Now it’s Absol’s turn to avert her gaze. “I fear for your brother. He is not as he should be.”
“Yes, yes, we’re both wrong, you said that already,” you say bitterly.
“Yes.” Absol’s unperturbed. “But your brother especially. Everything has gone wrong, somehow. I fear it is my fault.”
Her fault? How could it be her fault? Mewtwo’s the way he is because of the scientists who made him and because he’s a jerk. Absol doesn’t have anything to do with it.
It takes you several seconds to figure it out, but of course Absol is content to wait. “Because you defied Fate? You think this is something to do with that? Do you think you’re being… punished?”
No sound but the gentle patter of rain. “I do not know,” Absol says at last. “But I worry. It is true that your brother will not defy Fate. He desires the return of his mother above all. Besides, I would have seen it if he turned aside. But I cannot help but fear that I should have done something more. Something different. I can only hope that when your brother and mother reunite, she will better know how to help him than I did.”
Your mouth twists into a bitter sneer. Help him. Yes. Help him, when he’s the one killing people, when he’s done all this to you. He’s the one who needs help.
“What comes after, Absol? Can’t you see what happens after we find Mew?”
“A little,” Absol says. “No absol lives forever, and I am no longer young. I cannot say what becomes of your brother, although what I do foresee is troubling.”
Great. It would be too much to hope that Mew would be able to turn him good somehow, but you were hoping it anyway. “What about me?”
Absol is quiet for a long time, even for her. “I see nothing more of you.”
“You mean… You mean… I don’t ever see Mew again?”
Absol paws at the roof, claws squeaking in wet. “Not necessarily. There is much I cannot see even in this world, and it is not mine to know what lies ahead in the end. But whatever path you walk, your mother will not be able to follow.”
Of course. The tears sting worse than usual, gathering at the corners of your damaged eyes. It wasn’t like you really believed that you’d get to be Mew’s trainer. Not anymore. You’re strangers to each other now. She probably won’t want to be around humans at all anyway.
Besides, what would it even mean to go on a journey now? You’ll meet your pokémon again, and maybe they’ll agree to go with you. Or maybe they won’t. After you save Mew, what reason would they even have to stay with you? Maybe it would be you and Mew or just–you. Starting over from scratch. With nothing. With no one. Why bother?
“D-does,” you stammer. Something deep in your lungs stabs like broken glass when you breathe in too fast. “Does it get better? Do I get to be happy again?” After a second you realize your mistake and demand, “Before we find Mew? Do I get to be happy before then, or only then? Not until…?”
Absol contemplates you, red gaze seeming to search for something within you. You have no idea what. “It gets better.”
“When?” The word’s torn out of you like a cry of pain. “When, when? When is it going to stop?”
Absol doesn’t answer, of course. She would never be so specific as to tell you when something might happen, or how, or anything remotely useful at all. You could almost believe that she truly doesn’t know.
What she does do lie down beside you, in the rain and the damp, and let you water her fur still further with your tears, the same way she’s done ever since you’ve been small.
You cry out all the moisture you gained back, even after the clouds part and the sun strikes brilliant dazzles from the puddles left behind on the drenched metal roof. You cry until the damp’s dried from your skin and Absol’s fur has taken on the humid smell of wet mammal. A long time ago, she was the only one you had. And here you are again, after all that work to find your friends, after you thought for sure that this time you could all be together forever.
Absol doesn’t fidget or complain, only waits for you to finish, reassuring simply with her presence and her solidity. If you could believe one thing was eternal, it would be her. But can you anymore? What can you ever believe?
Someday, it will get better. You can believe that, you think. At least for now. But for how much longer, you really don’t know.
You find Mewtwo way down in the depths of the factory, when your fear of not knowing where he is finally crests higher than the dread of actually finding him. He stands surrounded by broken glass and bent metal, systematically smashing and shredding his way down through the building until there’s nothing left that you could possibly make a psychic damper with.
Not that he needs to worry. Even if you had everything you needed, you wouldn’t be able to put it all together without Thunder’s help, anyway. And that makes you remember, again, that Thunder’s gone.
But Mewtwo–if Mewtwo had his way, you’d never again be out of his sight. He needs food, though, doesn’t he? He wants food, and good food, and no, the places that sell fresh fish aren’t open in the middle of the night, when you’d have the excuse of being abroad for murder anyhow. If he wants his favorite, he’ll have to let you out at least once a day. Or go himself. But even he isn’t quite willing to go there. Yet.
You tell him you’ll check in with the Musketeers, too. See if they want to meet up again. You don’t know whether to be surprised that Mewtwo seems excited about that. At this point you’re just glad for leave to go.
There’s no one in Heracross’ little hidden cave. No one at Hypno’s house, either. But what her house does have is a calendar.
It’s a Colosseum day. You aren’t surprised you forgot. You’ve nothing to mark the days of the week, no ebb and flow of happenings. What you do at night, you do every night, and never mind the day of the week. But for the Musketeers some days are special, and you know exactly where they’ll be.
Once you actually find the Musketeers, though, you’re glad they’ll have the tournament to distract them. They greet you as warmly as ever, but there’s a certain hesitance to their words, the sense that they’re watching you more closely than usual, awaiting some sign of your mood. You don’t know how long you’d last under Hypno’s concerned gaze before you were overwhelmed by the need to flee.
“Well, you’re welcome to watch, of course,” Hypno says, digging at one of her big ears. You think she must be making an effort not to ask about what happened with Mewtwo. Waiting for you to bring it up first. As far as you’re concerned, she can go on waiting forever. “If you’re hungry, there won’t be much time to grab food before the tournament, though. And I really wouldn’t recommend Pyrite Colosseum food, but, well, it is an experience. Classic Orre, you might say.”
“I like stadium food! They always sell popcorn with sweet stuff on it for the big tournaments in Kanto, and some gyms do local specialties, like in Cerulean City they have some of that salty ice cream and in Fuchsia City it’s burgers with berry syrup that’s supposed to look like poison.”
Hypno rubs her chin, deep in thought. “Hmm, I don’t know what I’d call the Orre specialty. There’s a lot of dishes that are common around here that you didn’t really see out in Johto.”
“Drugs.”
“Heracross.”
“…on a bun?”
You snort a laugh despite yourself, and Heracross gives you a calf punch, since she can’t reach your shoulder.
“Anyway, no, it’s nothing that exciting, it’s just a lot of greasy stuff all loaded with cheese and hot sauce. If that doesn’t sound good, we can always get something else after.”
“That sounds great! But I was wondering…” You pause, suddenly nervous. What if they say no? It’s not like it matters, really. You can still be friends, however they answer.
You’re only making it weirder by leaving the sentence hanging so long. The Musketeers stare at you, politely attentive, waiting. Waiting for you to say something. You take a deep breath and force your words out in a rush. “Can I join you? Can I be a Musketeer, too?”
“Do you mean fight with us in the tournament?” Hypno idly flicks her pendant, and you have to firmly look away. “As a trainer, sort of thing? I’m really not used to taking commands these days. I think you’d probably end up just standing there, honestly. But if you want–”
“No, I want to be a real Musketeer. I don’t want to be your trainer.”
“What, like… You want to fight?” Heracross gives you a skeptical look. “I mean, I know you’re kind of a pokémon, or something, but I don’t think they’d allow someone who even looks that human into the ring. Can you even use attacks?”
This was a bad idea. You want to just say “no” and never talk about this again, so the Musketeers will stop with their polite consternation, but no. That isn’t what a real Musketeer would do. You have to be courageous. You have to not think about what Mewtwo would do if you make them mad and they all decide to stop helping you.
“I mean I want to be a Musketeer like the three of you. Not just today, but for always. I know there are only supposed to be three, but… I want to be one too. Please. If you’ll let me.”
“Oh,” Hypno says. That doesn’t sound like a good tone. She exchanges glances with her friends. “I mean, hmm. We didn’t really think about accepting more people into our merry little band, did we? It just kind of happened the way it did.”
“Our fearless leader’s got to decide,” Heracross says, raising her soda to Noctowl. “What say you, Cobalion? Do you find this one worthy?”
“Hmmm.” Noctowl tucks his head down between his shoulders, blinking slowly at you. “It’s an unusual request, but I see no reason to bar this one from joining our sacred order.”
“Ooh, sacred now, is it?” Heracross’ slurp says what she thinks of that.
“So it is,” Noctowl says, unperturbed. “Well met, then, young… Keldeo.”
“Oh, I forgot about that,” Hypno says. “Yeah, I think that works.”
“Keldeo?” That’s right, the kid Musketeer. There have been a couple TV shows about her. You suppose that makes four Musketeers, but you don’t want to be the kid. Just because you are one, supposedly. “I don’t want to be Keldeo! You be Keldeo instead!”
“Oh, right, because that’s not exactly the sort of thing Keldeo would say,” Heracross says. She slides into a lower stance, levelling her horn at your face. “Think you’re more than a Keldeo? You’ll have to defeat one of us if you want a spot in the trio.”
“Okay. Then I challenge Cobalion,” you say, nodding at Noctowl. It would be cool to be the leader, and besides, Noctowl must be the easiest to beat.
“Ah-ah-ah,” Heracross says. “Hold on a second, there. You can’t just walk in off the street and challenge the big boss straight away. You want to fight him, you’ve got to get through me first.”
Under other circumstances you might be annoyed. She’s making things up on the spot, just to protect someone she knows can’t win. But she can’t win, either. You can beat any of the Musketeers, and besides, it’ll be fun. It’ll be fun to battle Heracross.
“Fine, then,” you say, taking up a broader stance yourself. “I’ll beat you, and then I’ll beat him, and then I’ll be Cobalion. And you can be Keldeo!”
“All right, that’s the spirit!” Heracross sways back and forth, a broad grin on her face. Hypno looks as though she’s trying to suppress a roll of the eyes, and Noctowl’s doing his best “wise and aloof.” “Just a couple rules first.”
“Rules?” Now she’s going to make things up so she can win. It won’t work, but it is obnoxious.
Heracross laughs at your scowl. “Of course! We’re Musketeers, right? We’ll have an honorable duel. So, first rule: physical attacks only. No energy nonsense, no type advantage bullshit. This is hand-to-hand, one-on-one duel kind of stuff. You can use whatever kind of weapon you want, but we’re talking smacking people around, that’s it. My sword’s built-in.” She points up at her horn, which remains trained on your head. “But if you’ve got one of your own, you can bring it out.”
A sword! You kind of want to grow a big horn like Heracross has, but how would you even use it? You’re too tall, you’d be swinging your head up and down trying to hit her. Not good. There aren’t any leeks or bones or any of the other pokémon sword kind of things lying around for you to use, either. You’ll have to make something of your own.
“Whoah.” For once Heracross looks taken aback, her yellow eyes wide as she watches a metal claw emerge from the back of your hand. A modified drilbur drill, long and delicate-looking but much stronger than Heracross’ chitinous horn. You level it at her with a grin. This will do just fine.
“Huh. Ditto. Knew it.” Heracross swings her horn sideways to rest against your sword. “Let’s get started, then. Terrakion, you’ll count us off?”
“If you’re sure about this,” Hypno says. “Let’s make it a clean fight, okay?”
“Who do you think you’re talking to? You know I don’t fight dirty,” Heracross says with a wink for you. Is she nervous, maybe? She’s almost too swaggering. You smile back, taut with excitement. You’re going to win! And when you do, you’ll get to be part of the Musketeers for real. You’ve never been part of anybody’s special club before. Maybe you should have made one for yourself and your pokémon, before…
“Two! One! And battle!” Hypno calls, dropping her hand, her pendant flashing from her clenched fingers.
Heracross doesn’t delay. Downward pressure to shove your sword aside, and then she lunges forward, horn aimed straight for your gut. You force your sword back straight, up from under Heracross’ horn–you’re stronger, you can do that–but it’s awkward. Your sword waggles in empty air while Heracross readjusts, never off balance, and now swings her horn towards your unprotected side. You bring your sword around to block, and do, but it’s hard–you realize now how much more leverage Heracross has with her low stance and compact body, all her weight thrown behind that singular horn. Meanwhile your sword is long and wobbly, top-heavy, driven by your treacherous wrist. When it comes to shoving people around, Heracross is at a big advantage.
“What’s the matter, Keldeo? Not just gonna stand there, are you?” With a prodigious shove Heracross has her horn free, then chops down, batting away your rising sword, and jabs you hard in the gut.
“Ha! First blood’s mine!” she crows.
And all right, that’s it. You agreed to fight her with all her dumb rules that are obviously supposed to give her an advantage, but you aren’t actually going to let her win. You know you’re stronger. So when Heracross seeks forward with her horn again, you don’t try to block it. Instead you flip your hand over, palm up, and grab it just above the heart-shaped protrusion at its end.
“Umm, is that allowed?” Hypno asks while you use Heracross’ horn like a handle to pick her up and throw her over in the dirt. She scrambles to right herself, dark armor flashing in the sun, but you’re already on her, the point of your sword pressed firmly into the chink in her armor below her mouth–where he neck would be if she had anything like a neck at all. “Do you yield?” you ask grandly, beginning to warm to your role now that you have the upper hand.
“Yeah, I… don’t think so,” Heracross says. She kicks you in the shin, then swings herself around while you stumble, horn connecting with your legs and toppling you over in the dirt. The sword wobbling from your hand is too long and unruly, flailing at nothing in particular while you try to keep Heracross back. She ducks, leading with her horn, and tries to pin you. You grab her horn again and don’t let go while you get back to your feet, no matter how Heracross heaves and tugs.
Until she stops. You have her by the horn, not entirely sure what to do next but throw her on her back again, but Heracross is grinning. “All right, Keldeo, it’s been grand,” she says. “But I think it’s time for you to learn why you don’t mess with the best!”
She braces herself in a wide stance, and you tighten your grip. You won’t let her pull away.
But Heracross makes no attempt to free herself. Instead she lunges forward and, in one clean, confident motion, rams her horn under your ribcage to knock you over backwards.
Maybe it doesn’t quite go how she was hoping–you end up on your back, yes, but you’ve still got hold of her horn–but Heracross is quick to capitalize on the opening. She kicks you in the kidneys, twists her horn out of your grip when you flinch, then rams her horn into your diaphragm, keeping you winded and pinning you down in one stroke.
“Now, do you yield, Keldeo?” Heracross asks, voice muffled with her face practically pointing at the ground.
No, you don’t yield, never mind that you can’t talk to say so even even if you did. You struggle to get your breath back, hands scrabbling along the polished length of Heracross’ horn, trying to dislodge it. “I think we’ll have to call it a knock-out if Keldeo can’t get up in a few seconds,” Hypno says when you don’t admit defeat. “Three… Two…”
You redouble your efforts to rise but can’t find the leverage to push yourself back up. Hypno declares, “Okay, I think that’s game! Virizion is the winner!”
Heracross tips her head back with a triumphant whoop, removing her horn so you can, abruptly, drag air into your lungs again. You lie where you are, gasping, while Heracross parades around, claws in the air as though luxuriating in applause.
“That was supposed to be a clean fight,” Hypno says sternly.
“Yeah, well, where’s the fun in that?” Heracross asks. She buzzes over to retrieve a can of soda from the sidelines and gulps it down with record speed. “If you want to see what somebody’s really made of, you’ve got to push them, right? No better way to do that than throw in a few curveballs.”
Hypno’s face is crinkled like she smells something bad, which you guess means she doesn’t agree, but Noctowl cuts in before she can say anything. “It would seem Keldeo has been defeated,” he says, sweeping his wings out wide. “Virizion will retain her place within our ranks.”
“You know it,” Heracross says between loud guzzling sounds.
“That’s not fair! I challenge you again!” At last you have the presence of mind to actually push yourself up out of the dust.
“Ah-ah-ah, it ain’t that easy,” Heracross says.
“Indeed. You must wait a full turning of the moon before you can challenge for a place again, Keldeo,” Noctowl says. “The better for you to reflect, and learn, and grow in preparation for your next battle.”
More stupid rules. They’ll do anything to stop you from winning. “I already know what I did wrong. I can just do it right this time, and I’ll win!”
“Nah. Take a break, Keldeo. It’ll do you good. I’m not going anywhere, promise,” Heracross says.
“But.” You’re starting to shake, actually. Anger? No. Fear? Fear of what? “No, that’s not fair! You didn’t fight fair!”
Your tone must trigger Hypno’s mediation instincts. “Whoah, hey, it’s all right. It’s only a friendly battle. You’re right, Heracross played it pretty loose, but it wasn’t supposed to be serious.”
“No, it, it wasn’t fair!” You have to work to keep your voice some approximation of steady. You should have won! You should have won. You should have gotten to be one of Heracross and Noctowl and Hypno’s friends for real.
It’s not like that would save you. But it would have meant that you had friends again. That you could claim to belong to somebody besides Mewtwo.
Keldeo isn’t a real Musketeer. She’s only trying to be one. You know Noctowl didn’t mean for it to be bad, you know the Musketeers think this is just a silly fun game, but it’s not. They don’t realize it, but the Musketeers are the only people you have left. Besides Absol, if you can even still trust her.
You let the long claw that was your sword dissolve and be resorbed by your hand. Even Noctowl watches, nakedly fascinated. As long as they’re focused on that and not on your face.
Heracross must have noticed your expression, though. “Look, Keldeo, we really don’t know that much about you,” she says. “But that’s okay! No rush or anything. Why don’t we go off after the tournament and grab some grub and have a little chat? How’s that for a start?”
Isn’t that always their way? Get food and talk. They’ll all be laughing together, and as usual you’ll be the one left out, the strange one, the one nobody knows. Until one of the other three tries to bring you into their conversation out of pity. It’s not like you can actually tell them anything. It’s not like you can truly explain.
You allow them to lead you to the Colosseum, all the while dodging Hypno’s not-quite-prying questions about how you’ve been, how Mewtwo’s feeling. Normal questions except that both of you know that things aren’t actually normal, not at all. Everybody calling you “Keldeo” a lot, like it’s the funniest thing ever. Finally you split up, you and Noctowl to the stands, the other two to the ring. You’re on the sidelines, watching their friendship from the outside,same as always.
You don’t even know why you cared so much about being in their friend club. It wouldn’t have made any kind of difference. And it’s better this way, isn’t it? If they got too close to you, Mewtwo might decide to use them against you, the same as he wanted to do with your pokémon. Outside is where you need to stay. For however long your mission takes. Until Absol’s fabled day that it will all get better, that everything will make sense again. If it even exists. If you can even believe, just for a little, that there might be happiness for you yet.
Mewtwo’s instructions are always the same. You don’t need them, but he gives them anyway. You suppose he enjoys ordering you around. That’s the sort of strange thing that he likes.
Find the Cipher agent Edelyn. Subdue her and bring her out to me. Kill anyone else you find. Don’t screw it up!
Like it’s even possible to screw up something so simple. This place is probably empty, too. If so you’ll have nothing to do but wait until Mewtwo’s finished raging about it. Maybe he’ll rip the house apart, since that’s another of his bizarre hobbies. You’ve pointed out how destroying things only makes it more obvious what you’re doing and more likely that the Cipher people are going to get tipped off and flee, but it never does any good.
Shut up. Get on with it!
You didn’t say anything. But you know by now not to argue.
So you get on with it. Why not? Mewtwo’s made much of this night. Edelyn is one of the people Tyranitar told you about. Someone big, someone who might finally lead you to where Cipher is.
You are not hopeful. You will find what you seek here, or you will not. Hope has nothing to do with it.
Something is strange about this house. You know it the moment you step through the door. It’s not abandoned. There are people here–your nose is enough to tell you that.
It seems there are many. That could be difficult. Mewtwo wants you to kill all of them, and that’s going to take a lot of effort. And you’ll need to identify Edelyn, because you can’t kill her yet. You’re terrible at telling humans apart, especially like now, in the dark. There are no lights on anywhere. Is everyone asleep?
No. You don’t think so. You sharpen your hearing, seeking heartbeats. They’re too fast. Definitely awake. Pokémon, too? A couple don’t sound human. Even more trouble.
You concentrate briefly, conjuring a rocky shell around yourself. Rhyperior armor. That should be good enough to protect you from humans and lots of different pokémon.
You weren’t exactly quiet coming through the front door, but no one has come to see about the noise. Yes, something is strange. For once, a rare, rare once, you wish Mewtwo were here. You aren’t afraid of a fight, but he’d make short work of any danger. It would be a lot less effort, and it’s not like you enjoy getting injured.
You start forward, seeking a nearby heartbeat–not the closest, but one that’s a little apart from the others. Hopefully you can deal with it without alerting the rest of the humans. The best you can hope for is that you’ll be able to handle them one at a time.
Your nose and ears lead you along more reliably than your eyes. This house is full of things. You think it’s of higher quality than the others you’ve visited thus far–humans signal status by the size of their homes and the number of possessions they accumulate. Edelyn was supposedly a high-status member of Cipher, so that at least would make sense, even if nothing else here does.
The heartbeat emanates from a large piece of furniture, one with doors on the front. The human must be hiding behind them. Why would the human be there, rather than on one of the pieces of furniture made for sitting? There are multiple in this room. It heard you come through the door and… decided to hide?
You suppose that makes some sense. In the presence of a predator, the weak would rather hide than fight.
For a second you contemplate crushing the human while it’s still in hiding. No need to confront it directly. That would be the quickest, easiest way. You need to at least see it, though. You need to compare it to Mewtwo’s hazy mental picture of Edelyn. Mewtwo would be even angrier than usual if you killed the wrong human.
You ready a handful of sleep powder. If you can cut the human off before it makes a cry, perhaps you can get rid of it without alerting anyone else.
One hand closed into a fist, you reach for the door of the… closet, or whatever it is. The other you would have the name close to hand, no doubt. But no sooner have your fingers brushed the handle than another hand reaches out towards yours. A hand that comes through the wood of the door, a darker black in the nighttime shade. Claws dig into your wrist.
You stare dumbly for a moment. What is–?
The door creaks open a fraction, enough to reveal a sliver of toothy grin. “Hello, Cordierite-eyes,” the pokémon inside the closet says.